SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 327 



provinces to investing their capital in the West India islands, 

 w^hich are declining in fertility, and scarsely produce interest 

 for the capital employed. These colonies vi^ere originally 

 Settled by British industry and capital, and may date their 

 second birth and fresh invigoration from their resumption by 

 a British authority. 



' These colonies, where upwards of fifteen millions of British 

 capital are employed, produce more than all the West India 

 islands jointly, Jamaica excepted. These colonies, which 

 consume so many British manufactured goods, employ such 

 a proportion of shipping and seamen in their navigation, that 

 they might have been looked up to as a never-failing resource 

 against the declining state of our own islands. Besides raising 

 taxes for the support of civil government, and paying certain 

 dues and fees, stiled sovereign's money, they have produced a 

 revenue to the crown of Great Britain of two millions annu- 

 ally, yet they were unthinkingly given back at the peace of 

 Amiens. If such a pernicious system as this continues to be 

 followed, Bonaparte will soon gain one of his most ardent 

 wishes — "Colonies, commerce, and ships." The first he will 

 acquire ready made on a valuable and extensive scale by Bri- 

 tish gold, industry, and perseverance, and the others will fol- 

 low of course. Enthusiastic ideas of liberty and equality, and 

 mistaken notions of humanity, by striving at emancipating 

 the negroes, severed from France one of the props of that re 



